Seth Lewis's Blog, page 12

Time-Travel With Care

Time-travelling is one of the standard plot devices of our stories and films, from H.G. Well’s The Time Machine to Interstellar, Dr. Who, The Terminator, and hundreds more. It’s not hard to see the appeal—it’s interesting to imagine what it would be like to visit the world of the future or the past. It’s exciting to think of dipping into a different era, something totally unlike our normal everyday lives here and now. But it’s also easy to see the risks that this kind of time-travelling would bring with it. In the Back To The Future films, Doc Brown gives several stern warnings to Marty about the dangers and potential consequences of interfering with the past. He knows that time-travellers must be aware that even the smallest of actions can change the course of history in surprising ways—as we see in the films.

They are just stories, of course, but the logic holds. When you think about it, our lives today are built on a massive tangled mess of historical events, big and small, over the timeline of history. So many lives, so many lifetimes, so many choices over so much time—all of them have come together to bring us where we are today. Most of the events of the past that have shaped our lives are events that we know nothing about. Even at the time they happened, most of the daily events and actions of our ancestors must have seemed too small and insignificant to notice much. But noticed or not, they happened. And all together they led us to where we are today, for better or worse. So you can see why people in time-travelling stories would want to be careful with the past. When we look back, we see clearly that even the smallest actions can impact everything and everyone around us.

But if that’s true about the past, isn’t it also true about the present?

Our place in time doesn’t change the significance of our actions. We’re still making history with every action, every breath, every word. We are time-travellers, too. We may not be able to travel freely back and forth, but we are travelling nonetheless. We have one direction only: forward. The future is coming fast, and it is being shaped right now. Tomorrow will be built by the choices we make today, however big or small. While we tend to recognise this about the big choices, we can often overlook the significance of the small ones—but that won’t stop them from shaping the future. So as we pass through what will soon be the past, we should learn from time-travellers in the stories. We must watch the small actions. Mind the small decisions. The words thrown away. The things carelessly done. They all matter. They all make the future—and we’ll live there tomorrow.

The Sheep Don’t Know

A cliff rises above the sea, jagged, wild, immovable. The waves, far below, break against it with noisy violence. This is where the ocean ends and the patchwork fields begin, suddenly. In the fields, there are sheep. As I walk past, one of them looks up at me as he chews a disinterested mouthful of grass. He has eyes, so he can see the same view I see. He has ears, so he can hear the waves, and the gulls crying out above him.

I am only visiting, and part of me envies this sheep his home and his everyday sights and sounds. I look up and wonder what the gull’s eyes are seeing as he soars over all of this on the power of the wind. I wonder if I were a gull, could I ever get used to that feeling enough to focus on feeding myself? I think I might be a skinny gull. But I think I would be filled with the thrill of wonder.

The gull I see is fat, and the sheep is, too. Both are good at surviving. Both have eyes, and they see food clearly. They have ears, and hear danger coming. But neither of them sees the beauty of their surroundings or understands how their own presence adds to it. Neither of them is comforted by the rhythmic sound of the waves like I am, or astonished by the power of the wind—not even the gull, who has wings to harness it. They live, they survive, and I do think they genuinely enjoy the comforts of soft grass and warm sunshine. But when the sun sets, they do not see the artistry in the sky—even when they look at it. They are not curious about the science of how grass seeds grow into living plants and provide food for living animals. They are not moved by the mysteries of the sea to contemplate the mysteries of existence or write poetic verses or blog posts.

I’ve heard people say that humans are simply animals, surviving. If that were true, we’d never know it. We would survive, but we would never travel long distances to see where the ocean ends, hear its waves, and soak in its majestic immensity. We do these things because we are convinced that there is more to living than mere survival. There is art and beauty and meaning, mystery and discovery and wonder. The sheep doesn’t see it. The gull doesn’t see it, even with a bird’s eye view. God gave them eyes like the ones he gave you and me, but behind our eyes he gave us something more: a soul, created in his own image. The animals see and eat and live like we do, but they are not consciously aware of and able to respond and relate to the one who made these scenes and gave this life. That’s our job. That’s our privilege.

Playing In Power

It has taken me more than four decades of living to fully appreciate this, but a good wetsuit is a wonderful thing. Long sleeves, long legs, thick and tight and warm. The ocean is never warm in this part of the world. But a good wetsuit can give you a couple of millimetres of protection and believe me those millimetres are everything.

When I’m suited up, I walk confidently into the water. I’m ready to catch some waves. My son is beside me but our bodyboards collide and we’re laughing as my daughter flies past us on a fast one. We cheer her on, pick up our boards, and go again. And again. And again.

My legs are tired, but the waves are never tired. They keep hitting me with the same power, they keep pushing me and pulling and pushing again. Sometimes they come up unexpectedly and break on top of me and take my breath away with cold and surprise, but I don’t mind. Nearby I see the waves breaking on the rocks at the base of a cliff, shattering into a thousand waterfalls and running down fast so they can hit the rocks again. And again. And again.

There is power in this water.

That’s why the lifeguard set the swimming zone well away from the rocks. That’s why he uses a loudspeaker to warn us that there’s a strong rip today so don’t go too far out. We can play here and have a great time—just as long as we don’t take this power for granted. When the cold waves slap us in the face over and over again, we remember that we are small and mortal and the waves are stronger than we are. And we laugh. This is the world God gave us. It is mysterious and powerful—and delightful.

Slowly (a poem)

Sometimes it’s better to slow down to stay with someone else.

I see him walking

Slowly

Across the field
He’s old
But not so old
To move so slow

My eye follows
The lead he holds
That leads to
His companion—
Whose tail is wagging

Slowly

He struggles
To walk
Beside his friend
His little legs move

Slowly

The years have been
Much harder
On the dog
Than on the man

But the two go on
Together

Slowly

Shooting For The Earth

Shoot for the moon, they say, and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

I‘m not so sure. I’m not denying it would be a thrill to take a walk on the moon, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I guess I like oxygen too much, and trees and water and birds. And I have absolutely no interest in landing among the stars, either. Do you know how hot those things are?

I know, I know, it’s metaphorical. No one wants to land on a literal star, they’d just like to be a star, or at least hang out with them in their exclusive clubs and private yachts. The saying just means dream big, have ambitions, and what’s wrong with that? Nothing.

It would definitely be a thrill to take a walk on the moon, or even on a red carpet, but I’d rather not live in either of those rarified atmospheres. I’m happy down here on Earth where I don’t have to breathe all that pressurised air. That’s why I’m not building a rocket. I’m tending a garden.

The Earth is a garden, right here. The moon is a rock, far away. It is exciting and unique, absolutely, but it is also cold, dead, and distant. The Earth is close and familiar, and like anything we already have, we take it for granted. But look again and you’ll see that the Earth really is a garden, bursting with more life than we can measure or classify, even after thousands of years of trying. If the metaphor of “shooting for the moon” means leaving the life I know behind for something more unique—something like piles of cold cash, or lofty titles, or impersonal applause—I’ll pass. I’m more interested in shooting for the Earth, where life grows freely, even if it is close and familiar and messy.

The life I have right here and now might be common and unexceptional (like most of the things that grow on this planet) but it is life. And there are lives all around me as well—lives of other people God loves and crafted in his own image. I do not want to use the power of my ambitions to gain what is cold and empty (even if it’s unique) at the cost of what is precious and alive (even if it’s ordinary). If I’m going to shoot for something, I’d like it to be something living and beautiful, and I don’t care at all how common it is. What a privilege it is to live on a planet like ours among so many living, thinking, feeling, relating images of God! What a privilege it is to be able to have a hand in tending the life in and around me and helping it become what God made it to be!

I’m sure that fame and fortune and fabulous success are exciting, too, and there’s nothing at all wrong with having them. I’m still not going to aim my ambitions at them. They might be great, but on their own they are cold substitutes for living, breathing people, and the warmth of strong relationships. Some people can have it all at once, and I’m glad for them, but when it comes to priorities my main goal for life is not to launch myself like a rocket away from life as I know it into the stratosphere of success and notoriety. My ambition is closer to the ground—I want to tend and grow the life God put in me and around me right here where I am, in the very best ways I can.

I’m shooting for the Earth. It’s harder to miss, and I don’t mind if my hands get dirty, landing in the garden.

Would you like to think more about ambition, success, and what matters most? The ebook version of my book Dream Small is available for free (this month only) from The Good Book Company. You can get it through these links:

https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/free-ebook

https://www.thegoodbook.com/free-ebook

The hard copy is also available right now at a great price from Alistair Begg’s Truth For Life ministry, or as a thank you to those who make a donation:

https://www.truthforlife.org/store/products/books-and-booklets/dream-small/

The Music We Make

If you walk on the footpath outside our house when the windows are open, there’s a good chance you’ll hear music. Our whole family loves listening to music, and we appreciate a wide variety of styles. We love well played instruments and well thought out lyrics, and we love them even better when they’re put together. Music is powerful, far beyond any rational understanding of sounds. It bypasses all of that and aims straight for the heart. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know. I’m just thankful God made the world this way.

I’m also thankful that we live in an age where we can hear musicians we’ve never met, on demand, anytime, anywhere. We can choose from the best of the best, near and far, living and dead. Who in history could have dreamed of such a thing? But we don’t have to dream—we just play whatever music we want and never think twice about it.

So if you walk on the footpath outside our house when the windows are open, there’s a good chance you’ll hear music. Sometimes, it will be a selection of the best of the best from studios and concerts in far away corners of the world. Other times, it will be something less perfect, from much closer—we have a lot of instruments in the house that we play with varying degrees of skill. The best musician among us is my wife Jessica, who plays the piano beautifully.

It’s mesmerising when she plays. The house fills up and (if the windows are open) overflows with the feeling she pours through her fingers into the keys—how does music express so much, without a word? We can play all the recorded music in the world with the push of a button, but when she plays I don’t care about any of it. I’d stop it all to hear her play in our house, on our piano. No, it’s not a studio recording, taken and re-taken and mixed and re-mixed to perfection. It’s not always 100% perfect—and somehow that makes it even better. Maybe this is why so many of us pay significant money and go out of our way to attend live concerts and hear less-perfect versions of songs we already have perfect recordings of. When it comes to music, the closer we can get to the source, the more powerful it becomes.

And the closest you can get to the source of music is to be the source. There are times when I join in with my wife and strum away on my guitar and sing some lyrics and she sings harmony and we’re not nearly as good as the recordings but in those moments the mysterious power of music is amplified through our participation. That’s why people love to sing along with the professionals at concerts, and we sing alone in the car and in the shower, and we sing together at sports matches. We sing together in church as well—when we could just recite true things together—but we sing instead because there’s a real difference between saying “joy” and singing for it.

I’ll always be thankful that we are able to hear and appreciate the far away talent of the world’s best musicians. That’s amazing. But no matter how technically skilled or beautiful that music is, it can never have the same power as the music we make ourselves.

The End

Yesterday my wife and I attended the funeral of a friend that we will miss dearly. We still hear the echo of his deep voice in our ears, singing to the God he loved and served so well for so long. We will carry the memory of his smile and kind words with us as a precious treasure for the rest of our lives.

It’s hard to say goodbye.

It’s hard, but we need to do it. We need to remember, and grieve. We need to look back with thankfulness and look forward with hope.

But who can dare to look forward at a funeral?
Who can see beyond the finality of death?

There is only one hope big enough for that kind of vision, and it can only come from the one man who walked out of his own grave. For those who find hope in Jesus, that hope changes everything.

Even our funerals.

The End

Our hope
Is not the kind that fades away
When we have to say
Goodbye

Our joy
Is not the sort that lasts a day
Yet fails when falls the night

Our light
Will not go out while Jesus lives
(He cannot die again)

Our story
Like our Lord’s, will end
Yet in that ending, will begin

Our confidence
Outlasts despair and now
Despair is the imposter
So
Our laughter
Will not end in tears—
Our tears will end in laughter

We do not
Pass through life to end in death
We pass through death to end in
Life.

The Day I Told God No

I remember a day many years ago when I realised with a shudder that in order to obey what I had just read in the Bible, I would have to take a specific action. I knew very well what I had to do, but I also knew very well what it could cost me. There was a good chance that this step of obedience could fundamentally change—or even destroy—a close friendship, and I was terrified of that possibility. I knew what I had to do, but I did not want to do it. I tried to reason with the Lord, to show him that his command was too much to ask of me. He did not relent. So I tried a different approach: I simply said “no.” There on the floor of my bedroom, I told the Creator of everything that I was happy to follow him in everything except this one thing.

I told God “no.”

I expected a fight. I expected him to coax and convict me and I was ready to argue my point and stand toe to toe with my Maker. I was not ready for what actually happened.

God said “ok.”

Then he left.

Yes, I know my theology. I know God is everywhere, and you can’t escape his presence, even if you want to. When I say God left me that day, what I mean is that he stopped calling me to do what he said, and simply left me to myself.

My first feeling was surprise, followed by a sense of freedom. I was free to say “no” to the God who made me, and he let me do it. I was free to make my own way, choose my own path, make my own rules. And what would I do with that freedom? One thing was for sure: I would not do the hard, costly thing God wanted me to do. What else?

I sat on the floor looking ahead at my life, and I began to realise that this one little “no” would change everything. I was free to say it, and free to live it, but I was not free to control the consequences of that one little word. There in my room I was sitting at a crossroads. I could continue with the “no”, or I could continue with God. I could not continue with both. If I wanted God in my life, I could only have him one way: as my King. He would not accept a position as my consultant. If I insisted on reserving final decision-making authority for myself, then I could crown myself and have it—but I could not employ the God of the universe as one of my royal servants.

Two letters. So simple. Two paths. So different. I looked down the road of “no” that day and saw it gaping like a black hole in front of me—what could I live for, that would last? What happiness could I find that would not eventually fade and fall like the leaves in autumn? What security could I build my life on that would not eventually let me down? What legacy could I build that would not eventually fall to ruins? What hope could I reach for that would not be cut off by my own inevitable death?

Yes, there is a kind of freedom down the road of “no”. A flower is set free when it is cut from its roots—until it dies. But a flower that stays connected to its roots is free in a different way: it is free to thrive as it was intended to, to draw life from its source and bloom with it. That kind of freedom only comes on the road of saying “yes” to my Creator, putting down roots in his love and drawing my life from his inexhaustible supply.

I changed my answer.

Obeying wasn’t easy, but with God’s help it wasn’t as costly as I thought it would be, either. That’s not the point. Even if it cost me everything, I would still say “yes.” What good is everything without God?

The Interests Of Others And The Art Of Conversation

There are many kinds of art in this world, and all of them speak to us in different ways. One of the most powerful art forms I know of is usually not recognised as a form of art at all, but it should be: it is the art of conversation. Complex communication between two conscious humans would be considered a miracle if it didn’t happen constantly. The ability to exchange thoughts and ideas and feelings with other people—to hear what is happening in the hidden realm of another soul and share what is happening in your own—this is one of the great gifts of humanity. To do it well is the great art of humanity. 

If you meet a great artist on the street, you probably won’t realise it. They look like everyone else. But if you talk to a true master of conversation, you’ll know it. You’ll leave with a mind freshly sharpened and a soul rekindled. Their goal is not bare efficiency, like a game of verbal Pictionary. Instead, they layer their language with care, and with an artist’s eye to see and bring our attention to important realities and ideas we so easily, and so often, overlook. Isn’t that what great art ought to do?

If you meet such an artist, pay attention. Conversation is a skill that can be learned, so watch their methods. Growing up, I always looked forward to talking to my grandfather. He was a master conversationalist. Looking back at his example now, I can see his method more clearly—it was not his high intellect, clever jokes, or interesting stories that made his conversation so powerful, although he had all of those things and he used them well. The real power of his words was underneath the words themselves—but it came out in every one of them. The art of his conversation was driven by this: his genuine interest. 

When I talked to him, he was interested in what I said. More than that, he was interested in what I thought, interested in what I did, interested in me. I was just a child, or later a young adult, doing ordinary young adult things, and he was a global expert on quality control, changing the international world of business. He had lived through WWII, travelled the world, and achieved a tremendous amount of professional success. And yet whenever we talked, he wanted to know the details of my life—what I was doing and learning and thinking about.

In Philippians 2, Paul writes about how you can imitate Christ by “putting the interests of others ahead of your own.” This was my grandfather’s artistic method. When I spoke to him, he put my interests ahead of his own. He became interested in what I was interested in. And through his interest, and his thoughtful questions, I began to see my own interests differently. Through his eyes, I began to glimpse meaning and possibility in my life that I had never noticed before. He listened so well that he heard things I hadn’t even said. He highlighted what I was overlooking, and reminded me of its importance. He pointed me ahead and painted a vision of what could be, and thought with me about how I could get there. Like any great art, his words did not change the realities of my life, but they did change my perspective. I left with a sharper mind, a kindled soul, and a clearer vision. Isn’t that what great art ought to do?

Anyway (a poem)

Sometimes beauty is found in the most unlikely places.

Where Ireland’s green
Meets ocean’s blue
In jagged cliffs
With sweeping views
I walked until
The thick grass ended
Down onto the
Rocks descended
Down where wild
Wind and sea
Play tug of war
Continually

And there I heard
The steady crashing
Saw where solid
Stone was cracking
Saw there something
Most surprising:
One small flower
Somehow rising
In its lack
In harsh condition
In its crack
In poor position

In all this
You might expect
In place of bloom
A tiny fist
Upraised, in shaking
Anger shouting:
“Why?”
“Why did you put me here?
Take me away
And plant me where
It’s easier to bloom, and share
My beauty where it will be seen.”
But I saw no such thing—

I only saw
A flower clinging
Tight to stone
A flower making
Rock its home
A flower growing
Up from nothing
Blooming beauty
Anyway